homecoming.

This Friday, the Guntersville Wildcats celebrated their annual homecoming football game with a definitive victory over the DAR Patriots. There was a parade, a queen, and revelry all around... but this Guntersville alum wasn't there.

I was having my very own homecoming of a different kind.

Saturday morning, as I flew down 280, I called my mom with a big, "Good morning and War Eagle! I'm heading home!" Home to the Loveliest Village on the Plains, that is.

This is the second year in a row that the pledge sisters and I have gathered at Jo's apartment for a girls' weekend on the campus where we all met. I've been looking forward to it for weeks, and I must say, it didn't disappoint.

I started off Saturday morning with a chicken biscuit and a Diet Dr. Pepper from McDonald's, so it was a good day right away. And as soon as I pulled on to 280, I joined the Auburn Family caravan. Every car on that endless 4-lane highway was decked out with Auburn flags flying from car windows, Aubie tails hanging from trunks (admittedly, a decoration I've never really understood because it doesn't turn your car into a quasi Aubie so much as look like you stuffed unconscious Aubie into your trunk... but to each their own. It's the spirit that counts, I guess), personalized license plates and an Auburn sticker. There was no doubt where we were all headed, and those that were just out running Saturday morning errands were passed by a weaving snake of Auburn fans, one by one.

As I rolled past the first official Auburn University sign, I rolled my windows down and jacked my music up. After a year, I was finally home again.

When I got to Jo's, all the girls were still lazing around in their PJ's after a night out on the town. Saturday morning mimosas were the perfect compliment to a morning of doing each other's make-up, borrowing each other's clothes, and catching up on every detail of each girl's life.

The weather was perfect with a cloudless sky, warm sun, and cool breeze, and by 2:00, we were officially established at our tailgate on campus. Barbeque, brownies, dips, and cold drinks abounded as we played corn hole, latter ball, and War Eagle'd every passing fan.

When the moment came to enter the stadium, I got chills and a smile I couldn't suppress. It's really beyond words how I love that town, that team, that stadium... that moment. You walk into the concrete colossus where you're separated from the sun for just a minute before walking up the tunnel and emerging into the stadium, where a blanket of green grass and thousands of "family members" wait to cheer with you. Ah, there are those chills again.

Chasley's family scored us prime seats in the lower bowl on the 40-yard line, so we settled in just time to see Nova take flight from the flag pole. Let me tell you-- if you've never seen that beautiful bird soar around the stadium to the soundtrack of thousand screaming War Eagle, you can just go ahead and add that to your bucket list right this very moment.

So okay-- real talk. That game was ugly. Painful even. Every time the refs gathered with the teams, I couldn't help but think he was saying, "Now you guys get the ball and take it that way, and you other guys try to stop them. Got it?" But as football fans around the nation love to say, a W is a W, and I'll take it either way.

After the game, we stood by and cheered as the football players jumped into the student section to cheer with their adoring fans. We hugged and swayed as we sang the Alma Mater. Okay, none of us know the Alma Mater, but we hugged and swayed and hummed along. And as we walked through campus, we War Eagle'd complete strangers and cheered that, "It's great to be an Auburn Tiger." And the truth is, it is.

Even if we don't win every game. Even if we didn't win a single game. It would still warm my heart and thrill my soul to walk through that campus, to relive those memories-- those of one of the happiest chapters of my life. It's hard to be the feeling of being a proud alum. You can believe that my Auburn University diploma will hang proudly wherever I end up. And along with it, I hope there are pictures of me and my girls on that campus... no matter how many new buildings spring up or how many businesses close their doors or how many games or won or lost.


From the hollowed walls we'll part,
And bid thee sad adieu;
Thy sacred trust we'll bear with us
The ages through.

We hail thee, Auburn, and we vow
To work for thy just fame,
And hold in memory as we do now
Thy cherished name.


And that, my dear good friends, are a few of the actual Alma Mater lyrics. How fitting indeed.